smol-machines/smolvm on Hacker News

smol machines: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm slim, fast, microvm that runs on every platform. disclaimer: am author

comment by binsquare · 2026-10-23 · in OpenShell – A safe, private runtime for fleets of autonomous AI agents

Use smolvm, support for tailscale in each VM. https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-10-12 · in Launch HN: Agent37 (YC F26) – Low-cost agent sandboxes for running agents

hey simon, smol machines actually support exactly those things across macs,linux, windows btw: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/main/AGENTS.md#... here's a snippet of how it looks like to configure that: [network] allow_hosts =…

comment by binsquare · 2026-10-09 · in MXC - a sandboxed code execution system

…toss in smolvm as well because firecracker needs some expertise to make the box usable and secure. https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-10-05 · in Linux containers in 500 lines of code (2016)

…on your threat model but I think it's a good reminder either way. I recently discovered SmolVM < https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm > and it looks like a pretty good sweet spot for usability and isolation. There are so many sandboxing…

comment by zenoprax · 2026-10-04 · in Show HN: Pi pod – Run your pi coding agent in sandboxes on your own server

…going to try out this This seems like a project and I have starred the repo, good day! [0]: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by Imustaskforhelp · 2026-10-01 · in Show HN: Autobox – Make your agents sandbox themselves

That seems off to me as well. Fwiw, you can run this instead free and open source: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm Disclaimer: Am author.

comment by binsquare · 2026-09-30 · in 5x faster Edge Functions: V8 isolates to Firecracker MicroVMs

…and focus on being lightweight - I see 90% of native performance. I work on this as context: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-09-25 · in Entering and Breaking the Avast Antivirus Sandbox Part 2

…possible to checkpoint, branch, rollback the entire vm kind of like git but on the entire computer. https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-09-14 · in Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2026)

…I've only built toy kernels to experiment with supporting remoting CUDA workloads on smolvm: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/6dcb182d7fbc9f5...

comment by binsquare · 2026-08-18 · in GPU Offload in Rust: Portable, Safe, and Fast

maintainer, I would recommend trying out: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm It has network filtering + placeholders for secrets. OSS, no logins needed

comment by binsquare · 2026-08-10 · in Docker Sandboxes – Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents

I build a OSS lightweight, portable VM for those that don't want lock ins: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-08-10 · in Docker Sandboxes – Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents

A lightweight ,portable virtual machine that simplifies/replaces need for containers. https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-08-09 · in Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)

…machine with egress filtering if you're looking for an even more batteries included approach. https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-07-19 · in Setting up your spare Mac for Claude Code to control, a step-by-step guide

…runtime in Podman. There's also smolvm which is a nice minimal microvm manager based on libkrun: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm . I vibe coded a little shell utility for building and running OCI images for the Pi harness using it…

comment by Sanzig · 2026-07-13 · in Grok CLI uploaded the whole home directory to GCS

If you back it through smolvm, I can take care of the isolation story for you across windows, macOS https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm SDKs available https://github.com/smol-machines/smol

comment by binsquare · 2026-07-13 · in Show HN: Agent-run – Run a coding agent in a sandboxed environment

…called smolvm: a hybrid that combines isolation of VM with speed and flexibility of containers. https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-07-13 · in Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)

This description from the https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm is helpful Each workload gets real hardware isolation — its own kernel on Hypervisor.framework (macOS), KVM (Linux), or the Windows Hypervisor Platform (Windows). libkrun…

comment by aw-engineer · 2026-07-03 · in Smol Machines

yes to both, here's the example for running docker(indirectly, devcontainers) inside smolvm: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/main/examples/d...

comment by binsquare · 2026-07-03 · in Podman v6.0.0

I build a local, cross platform virtual machine for this purpose: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-07-01 · in Ask HN: Secure wrapper for coding agents?

Era links to https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm now

comment by femboyvtuber · 2026-06-30 · in Ask HN: Secure wrapper for coding agents?

Fixed and released in v1.3.1: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/pull/497

comment by binsquare · 2026-06-29 · in A way to exclude sensitive files issue still open for OpenAI Codex

I made a lightweight vm specifically for this use case: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-06-28 · in A way to exclude sensitive files issue still open for OpenAI Codex

check this out https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm will have a hosted platform soon with GPU support (vulkan)

comment by binsquare · 2026-06-26 · in MicroVMs: Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control

…a fork of libkrun (not firecracker based) that runs locally across wsl, macOS, and Linux natively. https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-06-21 · in Running MicroVMs in Proxmox VE, the Easy Way

I built this tool to solve that exact problem: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-06-10 · in macOS Container Machines

Might consider https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm It's a full vm

comment by binsquare · 2026-06-10 · in macOS Container Machines

…but also have seen nono: https://github.com/always-further/nono smolvm: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm zerobox https://github.com/afshinm/zerobox and matchlock https://github.com/jingkaihe/matchlock They all have pros and

comment by mathstuf · 2026-06-07 · in Anthropic, please ship an official Claude Desktop for Linux

I build a lightweight vm here that fits your needs as well: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-06-07 · in Running Python code in a sandbox with MicroPython and WASM

Kernel-level isolation is a significant security differentiator, for starters. https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm#comparison shows a good comparison table.

comment by chrisweekly · 2026-06-01 · in Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC

i care about it more than money, here's my take on a client-side `sandbox`: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm it's a lightweight vm because i see sandboxing as a feature of vm's.

comment by binsquare · 2026-05-21 · in Saying goodbye to asm.js

…that has the fast boot and portability of containers. It's called a smol machine free and oss, https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-05-11 · in Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2026)

it has directory mounts - so access the same files: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/main/AGENTS.md?... It also has file copy from host to inside the guest: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/70c97930dda5a92...

comment by binsquare · 2026-04-18 · in Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

…applications you might otherwise use a Docker image for. [0] https://github.com/NilsIrl/dockerc [1] https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/issues/159

comment by tkocmathla · 2026-04-18 · in Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

…onto them 2. having private mount namespaces for vms they are both tracked in our github issues: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/issues/152 https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/issues/151 2 may need much more efforts than we…

comment by fqiao · 2026-04-17 · in Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

we will evaluate. I created this issue to track this: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/issues/150 Really appreciate the feedback!

comment by fqiao · 2026-04-17 · in Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

…it should. Yes! GPU passthrough is being actively worked on and will land in next major release: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/pull/96 Yea just tried piping, it works: ``` smolvm machine exec --name m1 -- wget -qO-…

comment by binsquare · 2026-04-17 · in Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

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Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

story by binsquare · 2026-04-17 · 152 comments

…fast as containers and can be made portable and easy to use like containers. free, open source -> https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm I worked with firecracker a lot back in the day and realized it was a pain to use. And containers had…

comment by binsquare · 2026-04-12 · in Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)

…resonated a lot with me and why I'm building it, any interest in working to solve that together?: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-03-24 · in Tell HN: Litellm 1.82.7 and 1.82.8 on PyPI are compromised

hey fren, try this: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm I already have a couple folks using it for claude: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/discussions/3

comment by binsquare · 2026-02-27 · in Let's discuss sandbox isolation

I'm building an alternative to firecracker here if you're looking for something wayy different: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-01-28 · in Show HN: I Built a Sandbox for Agents

I'm building in this space, I take a docker inside a microvm (vm-lite) approach. https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm

comment by binsquare · 2026-01-26 · in The Holy Grail of Linux Binary Compatibility: Musl and Dlopen